Archives / 2013 / September

Many are unaware that the Qur’an mentions Jesus in several of its Surahs. For example, Surah 3:45 says “(And remember) when the angels said: O Mary! Lo! Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, illustrious in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near (unto Allah).” The Qur’an mentions Muhammad as too. For example Surah... »

Worldviews have consequences and they are the reason why Christians and non-Christians can look at the same evidence and interpret it differently. Many debates about the existence of God aren’t very effective because some Christians aren’t even arguing for the biblical trinitarian God, but some nameless force/deity much like the “force” in Star Wars. I want to explain why w... »

There are a number of ways people have to avoid arguments while appearing to actually be saying something of significance. One of these ways, I have noted, is to make an issue of what is called “confirmation bias”. The way it runs is something like this: “Anyone who believes X, or has a vested interest in X being true, is more likely to seek and present evidence for X, while also... »

Evidentialists HAVE presuppositions and presuppositionalists HAVE evidence. I was searching the site recently and didn’t find anything that explained the presuppositional method in layman’s terms. This post won’t explain all aspects of it, but hopefully can help some people better understand the nature of empirical evidence in apologetics. I have used evidences in a couple ways. ... »

In my last post, I suggested that developing friendships strictly for the sake of evangelism is, in some ways, a deceptive maneuver; that friendship is a good in itself, and thereby should not be sought for the sake of something else. That said, in this post, I shall argue that, in other ways: (1) not to be an evangelist to our non-Christian friends can be deceitful; and (2) to consider friendship... »

The last in this exhaustingly-long series. I promise. One last time, the Problem of Silence: If there exists a loving, fatherly God, then he would pursue communion with his human creatures. If a loving, fatherly God were to pursue communion with his human creatures, then he would make himself present or at least available to (all or most of) his human creatures (or at least those who do not oppose... »

Our Bible study group just started a study of Romans, one of my favorite Bible books. If you are familiar with Romans, then you are well aware that the first chapters talk about how sinful human beings are. On reading these first chapters I began to recognize that our culture, like much of first century culture, is saturated with sin. The worst part was that I recognized that I have allowed my own... »

I once had one of those radical sort of Skeptics email me stating that they saw no reason to study in depth something they already knew would turn out to be untrue. Then he declared that we need higher standards of evidence for the Gospels than we do for a historical work like that of Tacitus, because there is no fact “on which a person would base his whole mode of life and world view.”... »

Well rehearsed by now, the so-called Problem of Silence: If there exists a loving, fatherly God, then he would pursue communion with his human creatures. If a loving, fatherly God were to pursue communion with his human creatures, then he would make himself present or at least available to his human creatures (or at least those who do not oppose finding him and/or who earnestly seek him). But God ... »